What would have been the downside of ending the filibuster since Democrats RARELY used in minority?

[Mc Mike]

22. I believe in giving the voters a clear, distinct choice too,

instead of a repug-lite dem candidate running in an election against a repug. Higher up the chain of command of the Dem party, there are more people who value their positions and access to power over any attempt to mobilize and fire up the grassroots Dems with a clear choice. I think all progressive causes would fare better under a parlaimentary system, but we don't have one.

Our top political strategists are probably right, we probably couldn't run a Dem who lines up with Warren or Sanders as a Dem in Missouri or N. Dakota, and hope to win. And we are better off having McCaskill over Akin. Gab Giffords was an NRA member, which I guess is what it took to get the first Jewish woman into Congress in AZ. But it's a shame that our Dems from conservative areas don't do what the repugs do, get elected as 'moderates', then push the most partisan governing moves through. Probably because repugs own corporate media, which regularly ignores the repugs' radical moves, but would jump all over a Dem who did anything like the repugs do.

Maybe it would help if progressive Dems in a conservative blue area or red areas voted with their contributions, back the Dems in other areas who are more in line with their progressive values. I suspect a lot of Dems in conservative areas max out their contributions to the blue dog or third way DLC candidate in their region, in order to access their region's political power pyramid. For me, it would have been a nightmare if Tom Smith beat Bob Casey for my state's Senate seat, but I broke up my Senate contributions to back more progressive Senate candidates in other parts of the country.

Re the evaporation of the s.m., I think it disappeared too fast to be the result of rank-and-file progressive dems' disgust about 'centrist' compromises, because it should have taken a longer lag time between disgruntlement and resulting backlash. (Not being argumentative with you, yb, just my opinion.) I don't believe that blue MA put a repug like Brown in over Coakley one year after swamping the repugs in Obama v. McCain, after decades of putting Ted K. into that seat. Electronic voting fraud. Same for the 'centrist' losses of Daschle and Cleland in '02. A ton of irregularities and anomalies accompanied the repug victories. But I don't think they can steal it every time, just if our side is on the defensive and the base is not fired up. They can't steal a 30 point victory from us. And the best way to assure a 30 point victory is giving the people a clear progressive choice, instead of someone who says the repugs 'make some good points'. So I agree with you about not siding with the repugs on the big issues, though it is a long winded and circuitous agreement.